business plan

The Dribbling Metaphor for Business Planning

January 25, 2013

Think of basketball or soccer. In both of these popular sports, dribbling is what the players do to move the ball in the right direction. It’s not the point of the game, it doesn’t score baskets or goals, but it’s an important skill, right? I think of dribbling as a great analogy for business planning. [...]

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Pop Quiz: Do You Know How to Start a Business Plan?

October 3, 2012

People often ask me how to start a business plan. Sometimes I’ll say it depends on you, your preference, and your style, so some people do a sales forecast first, some do a vision statement. But the right answer is that you start by scheduling your monthly review and revise meeting. That’s by far the [...]

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The Best Business Success Factor is Value

October 1, 2012

Keys to entrepreneurial success? We talk about passion, persistence, ideas, funding, planning, sales, product-market fit, and all of that. Do what you love, we say. My opinion changes according to recent events, experience, even mood. Which is fine, because it’s a reaction to events, and we don’t want to get static. But on the long [...]

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Understand the Critical Difference Between Ideas and Opportunities

September 24, 2012

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Opportunities are much more important. An opportunity is an idea that’s passed the test of planning. It has potential. You can implement it. An opportunity has some of the following elements: Industry and market potential: look at market structure, industry structure, growth rate, margins, costs, etc. Economics: capital requirements, [...]

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What Business to Start? Look in the Mirror

September 6, 2012

So you want to start a business, but don’t know what kind? Sure, you can get a list of franchises or ask the experts what are good businesses to start. That works for some people. Lists of businesses to start are easy to find. My advice, however, is don’t look for a list of good [...]

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What is the most important thing to have when you are just starting your company?

August 7, 2012

Entrepreneur.com asked What is the most important thing to have when you are just starting your company?  on LinkedIn and here are the results: While I really like the answer business plan – I’m a business planner – I don’t completely agree. If I weren’t biased down to my bones, I’d answer “something else” and clarify that what you [...]

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Marketing Plans vs. Business Plans: What’s The Difference, and Why Do You Care?

May 30, 2012

What’s the difference between a marketing plan and a business plan? Doesn’t a business plan include a marketing plan? Why would anybody do one without the other? Good questions, and since I get them a lot, I decided to answer them here: A business plan covers the entire business, including overall strategy, financial plans, target [...]

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What You Think You Know About Business Planning Can Hurt Your Business

March 20, 2012

(Note: I posted this yesterday as a guest post on Howard Lewinter’s Talk Business With Howard blog, part of getting ready for a radio chat with Howard on Blogtalkradio tomorrow morning. It starts at 8 am Pacific time. Please click here to listen or get more info on that.) Is this you? When asked if [...]

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Challenge: Can You Tell a Business Model from a Business Plan?

February 7, 2012

What’s the difference between a business model and a business plan? It depends on who you ask. Business plan means a lot of different things to different people, and so does business model. I’ve complained occasionally about confusing terminology, but I guess it’s just the way things are. There are similar problems with strategic plan, [...]

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Reflection: 10 Lessons Learned in 22 Years of Successful Bootstrapping

December 28, 2011

(I posted this about two years ago on Small Business Trends. I’m reposting it here today because this is a good time of year for this kind of reflection. And maybe also for not writing a new post. Tim ) Last week a group of students interviewed me, as part of a class project, looking for [...]

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